Academy Fellow

Professor Bigby is the leading social work researcher in the multi-disciplinary field of intellectual disability. Her work has made a significant contribution to understanding practice and its implementation to support adults with intellectual disabilities to participate in everyday life at home and in the community. Through a longitudinal study of accommodation services begun in 2009, Bigby’s work demonstrated the fragility of good practice and identified organisational and cultural factors predictive of good practice over time. She successfully translated this new knowledge into guidance for implementation and evidence-based training for direct support workers, widely used in Australia and overseas. Her evidence informed the 2023 NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission recommendations for new practice standards for accommodation services now underway (endorsed by the Disability Royal Commission and the NDIS Review). Her research also moved thinking from broad recognition about the importance of culture in accommodation services to identifying specific domains and those associated with good practice and staff satisfaction and included, with colleagues, the development of a scale for measuring culture.

Bigby with colleagues also led the application of the concept of convivial encounters, from urban planning, to develop understanding of and strategies for supporting people with intellectual disabilities to participate in community groups.

Bigby’s other major contribution is the translation of high-level rights principles about equity before the law and self-determination into an evidence-based practice framework to support the decision making of adults with intellectual disabilities. The Framework, developed from empirical study of decision support processes, includes steps, principles and strategies for supporter practice. Bigby demonstrated the impact of training in the Framework on both formal and informal supporters. The Framework is embedded into the practice of the Victorian Traffic Accident Commission, and the Queensland and Tasmanian Public Trustees.

A Discovery grant with Tilbury and Hughes contributed significant new knowledge about the production, dissemination, impact and culture of social work research in Australia.

Bigby has led 9 ARC or other competitive grants, been CI on 19 others, and CI on 100 industry grants since 1998. Her supervision of 18 PhD students (15 primary) has contributed to the developing practice scholarship. The practice journal she founded and edited until 2025, Research and Practice in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities has been the catalyst for scholarship in the field.

As editor of Australian Social Work from 2003 to 2013 she was instrumental in gaining its entry to ISI impact listings. She is currently editor of the Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability holds editorial positions on the leading journals in her field, including Disability and Society, Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.

The quality of Bigby’s research is recognised internationally. She publishes in leading social work and intellectual disability journals and is widely cited. Her H index is 39 (Scopus) and 60 (google scholar), significantly higher than the average of 15.8 (Scopus) and 25 (google scholar) for research focussed academics in her discipline of social work.

She held visiting professorships at the Tizard Centre, University of Kent, UK, the leading centre for her field from 2009 to 2022, and Halmstad University in Sweden from 2014 -2015.

Her publications have been translated in Norwegian and German and been instrumental in introducing Active Support and Frontline Practice Leadership in Sweden, a supported decision-making framework in Norway, and the group home culture scale in Germany and the UK.

Bigby has taken a leading role in international and national research associations. She was Chair of the IASSIDD, Special Interest Group on Aging (2004-2014) and on the executive of the Comparative Policy and Practice Group (2015-ongoing) and Chair since 2024. 

2019-2023, Member, ARC College of Experts

2022 - Member ARC Medical Research Advisory Group

2012, Fellowship International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual Disability.

2025, Order of Australia - Officer of the Order of Australia –For distinguished service to people with intellectual disabilities, to social welfare and inclusion research, policy and practice, and to tertiary education.

2024, Mander Jones Award, Archivists Society of Australia

2022, Bruce Lord Award for Excellence in Research Methodology, Australian Social Work.

2022, Australasian Research Prize, Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability.

2019, Distinguished Achievement Award – Research, International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disability.

2017. Australasian Research Prize, Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability.

2013, Finalist National Disability Awards.

2010, Australasian Research Prize, Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability.

1992, Australasian Research Prize, Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability.

Bigby, C., & Hough, A. Eds. (2023) Disability practice: Safeguarding quality service delivery, Palgrave. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-99-6143-6

Putnam, M., & Bigby, C. (2021). Handbook on aging with disability. Boston: Routledge

Bigby, C. & Humphreys, L., (2024) The strength of Frontline Practice Leadership in Australian supported accommodation services: challenges confronting service providers Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disability. 37, 3, https://doi.org/10.1111/jar.13227

Wiesel, I., Bigby, C., van Holstein, E., Gleeson, B. (2024) Inclusive mainstream services for people with intellectual disability: a relational approach. Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.

Bigby, C., Carney, T., Then, S-N, Wiesel, I., Sinclair, C., Douglas., Duffy, J (2023) Diversity, dignity, equity and best practice. A framework for supported decision-making. Research report the Royal Commission on Violence, Abuse, and Exploitation of People with Disabilities. Royal https://disability.royalcommission.gov.au/publications/diversity-dignity-equity-and-best-practice-framework-supported-decision-making and Living with Disability Research Centre, La Trobe University